Pioneer Justin Fashanu: „He didn’t want to be anyone he wasn’t“

On Friday, Justin Fashanu, the first football pro to publicly stand for his homosexuality, would have turned 60. However, because the football world could not cope with his outing, he took his own life in 1998. In an interview with the kicker, his niece, journalist Amal Fashanu, talks about her uncle’s legacy – and what needs to change.

At the latest through his 1980 goal against Liverpool, Norwich City’s striker Justin Fashanu became one of the most promising talents of English football as a teenager. A year later, at the age of 20, he became Britain’s first black player to win a million dollars for Nottingham Forest. But instead of becoming a star, he became the scapegoat of coach icon Brian Clough, who harassed Fashanu – because he regularly turned in the gay scene.

Fashanu finds himself – and yet no way out